# Category settings broken
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 13, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455 "2025-10-13T15:43:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Eviepayne](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Eviepayne)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/1 "2025-10-13T15:43:48Z")
# Versions
Discourse Version: 3.6.0.beta2-latest ([db67a0841e](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/db67a0841e8e14ae70de0890441f8158c50ae3c9))
Reproduced in 2 different discourse instances
# Issues
This is all I’ve found so far.
**When opening a category’s settings:**
**Sometimes the navigation doesn’t update to the new tabs and displays weirdly:**
**when trying to update category privileges:**
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### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 1:30am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/2 "2025-10-14T01:30:38Z")
Can you try enabling [safe-mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-safe-mode-to-troubleshoot-issues-with-themes-and-plugins/53504) to see if the issue persists?
I am currently unable to reproduce the error which you are seeing which suggests to me that it may be related to a theme or a plugin that you have installed.
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 6:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/3 "2025-10-14T06:41:49Z")
Do you know how you managed to have “everyone” with full permissions and additional groups in the configuration?
For me, saving something like that doesn’t work:
> [@Cannot save category security settings when adding custom group”](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-save-category-security-settings-when-adding-custom-group/382153/2):
>
> Welcome to Meta waving_hand I can reproduce. I think it’s by design, but I agree that it’s confusing. And there should be an explanation. If everyone is allowed to read, post, and create topics, then adding another group doesn’t change permissions. What do you want to achieve with the group you add? Maybe the text would already help. But as I reported before, it is only shown when the default locale is English, so “everyone” is in English
I wonder whether saving additional groups in combination with “everyone” having all permissions was possible in the past and is causing trouble now.
There have also been recent cases where saving permissions failed due to another setting. The colour in the general tab did not meet the new requirements\[1\] and that prevented saving because the whole configuration is saved at the same time. So it might be worth checking what you have configured in the other sections and whether there are any similarities between the forums.
* * *
1.
> [@Access to category after 10 posts (automatic group membership)](https://meta.discourse.org/t/access-to-category-after-10-posts-automatic-group-membership/381804?silent=true):
>
> Hi guys, we migrated a backup from NodeBB to Discourse for testing. In NodeBB we had a ticket exchange category that was only visible for active users with \>= 10 posts to avoid scammers. Setup before: Group Ticket Exchange Access Auto-join with rewards plugin (if \>= 10 posts then add to group) With category privileges only that group could access the category In Discourse when I try to restrict the category to the migrated group and its members only, I can edit the permissions but …
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### Author:  [@Eviepayne](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Eviepayne)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 3:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/4 "2025-10-14T15:35:57Z")
That seems like an oversight.
If I have a subcategory that needs to have it’s permissions updated but has more restrictive rights, I can’t when the parent category has everyone permissions.
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/5 "2025-10-14T16:11:55Z")
Can you share an example configuration that is a problem?
You can have a parent category which everyone is able to see, and group A is able to see and post and a subcategory that only group B is able to see and reply. Therefore you don’t need to add group B to the parent category
Like this (“jeder” is the German term for everyone)
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### Author:  [@Thomas\_Rother](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Thomas_Rother)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2026, 11:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/6 "2026-02-11T11:20:55Z")
Maybe I have something similar here: the category should be readable for **anyone**. Creation of new topics and edits should only be able for users with “wiki” group permissions. In fact it **is** readable without a login. Then just the info “category is private …“ is wrong and should read “category has permission limits, only the selected groups can create and reply posts” instead.
Note that the category is federated at [wiki@forum.netzwissen.de](https://forum.netzwissen.de/c/wiki/69) with public visibility.
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2026, 11:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-settings-broken/385455/7 "2026-02-11T11:40:50Z")
The issue I mentioned above was fixed.
This seems to be related to [Simplified category setup](https://meta.discourse.org/t/-/394971). It works fine when I enable that
But breaks if that is disabled
There are some places where the experiment affects sites that don’t use it. For example, the images tab was also renamed to Appearance for both interfaces, but only contains all appearance settings in the new interface. In the old one, Images fits better. But since the text was replaced, there is only one version for both interfaces